SPOHR, Louis 1784-1859

[Op. 45]. Trois Quatuors pour deux Violons, Viola et Violoncelle. [Parts]

Leipzig: C.F. Peters [PNs 1487, 1489, 1490], [1819].

Folio. Disbound. I: 12, 9, 9, 9; II: 13, 11, 11, 8; III: 14, 10, 10, 10 pp. Engraved. Titles to first violin parts only. With Simrock overpaste to title of Quartet no. 3.

Slightly worn and browned, more heavily to no. 2; remnants of paper tape to spines; occasional staining and other minor imperfections. Contemporary signature to each part of no. 2.

First Editions. Göthel, p. 82.

"Regarded by many contemporaries as worthy of a place beside Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven in the pantheon of the greatest composers, he has, together with Gluck and Cherubini, been allotted a considerably lower status by posterity. Mozart's Figaro and Wagner's Tristan were both composed during Spohr's lifetime; his own work looks, Janus-like, towards both the formalism and clarity of the Classical tradition, and the structural and harmonic experimentation associated with 19th-century Romanticism."

"From the end of 1817 until 1819 [Spohr] was resident in Frankfurt as director of opera, where he did much to raise standards of performance... He also enriched the musical life of Frankfurt by presenting a series of quartet concerts, for which he composed his String Quartets op. 45." Clive Brown in Grove Music Online.

Item #14874

Price: $325.00  other currencies